SLUMDOG ACTORS WEREN’T PAID THAT MUCH

“Danny Boyle has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Indian child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail and paid for their education. But it has emerged that the children were paid less than many Indian domestic servants.

Rubina was paid £500 ($745) for a year’s work [they didn’t do an entire year’s work, I guarantee you] while Azharuddin received £1,700 ($2,532.95), according to the children’s parents.

However a spokesman for the film’s American distributors, Fox Searchlight, disputed this saying the fees were more than three times the average annual salary an adult in their neighbourhood would receive. They would not disclose the actual sum.

Fox doesn’t sound like they’re disputing the actual amount, they’re just saying the amount is three times the average annual salary of someone LIVING IN AN INDIAN SLUM. Not necessarily the best defense.

Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 ($29.80) a month for books and food. However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names.

Their parents said that they had hoped the film would be their ticket out of the slums, and that its success had made them realise how little their children had been paid.

Fair enough, but if the film lost $10 million, no one would be asking the kids to give their salaries back. Except maybe Chet in Accounting. That guy’s a real dickweed.

The children received considerably less than the poor Afghan child stars of The Kite Runner, who embarrassed their Hollywood producers when they disclosed that they had been paid £9,000 ($13,413.12).

Rubina and Azharuddin live a few hundreds yards from each other in a tangle of makeshift shacks alongside Mumbai’s railway tracks at Bandra. Azharuddin is in fact worse off than he was during filming: his family’s illegal hut was demolished by the local authorities and he now sleeps under a sheet of plastic tarpaulin with his father, who suffers from tuberculosis.

“There is none of the money left. It was all spent on medicines to help me fight TB,” Azharuddin’s father said. “We feel that the kids have been left behind by the film. They have told us there is a trust fund but we know nothing about it and have no guarantees.”

Further down the tracks, an open sewer trickles past the hut that Rubina shares with her parents, older brother and sister. Her father, a carpenter, broke his leg during filming and has been out of work since. “I am very happy the movie is doing so well, but it is making so much money and so much fame and the money they paid us is nothing. They should pay more,” he said, wafting away the smoke from a nearby fire. “I have no regrets. I just had no knowledge of what she should have been paid.”

Well living in a slum sucks no matter how you slice it, and the filmmakers probably should’ve paid their child actors a lot more. Then again, it could be worse. Look at Danny Masterson.

A Fox Searchlight spokesman said: “The welfare of Azhar and Rubnia has always been a top priority for everyone involved with Slumdog Millionaire.

“A plan has been in place for over 12 months to ensure that their experience working on Slumdog Millionaire would be of long term benefit. For 30 days work, the children were paid three times the average local annual adult salary. Last year after completing filming, they were enrolled in school for the first time and a fund was established for their future welfare, which they will receive if they are still in school when they turn 18 [by the way, why don’t we have this “still in school” contingency for American actors? Fox Searchlight are apparently better parents than the Hogan family.].

“Due to the exposure and potential jeopardy created by the unwarranted press attention, we are looking into additional measures to protect Azhar and Rubina and their families. We are extremely proud of this film, and proud of the way our child actors have been treated.” [via Telegraph, picture source = Reuters]

Look, if these kids are having such a shitty life, they should just go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. If I learned anything from that film, it’s that living a hard life on the streets will teach you all you need to know in order to win the grand prize.

If I was born into a slum, I would fuck my parents up.
“Oh geez thanks for having me. I love living in a shack made of shit covered pages of the New York Times next to a river of offal five feet from the railroad tracks. Assholes.” Pow! Biff! Crash!

A spokesman for the SAG who wished to remain anonymous said “Fuck those little fuckers.”

By: Rotwangchung

02.09.2009 @ 4:20 PM

From the inevitable Oscars acceptance speech: “And I’d like to thank Hajib; if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here, nor would I have these extremely comfortable Nike sneakers.”

By: TengoDooter

02.09.2009 @ 4:20 PM

Why not just explain to them how much better off they are NOT making a lot of money as a child actor.

Use Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman as examples.

By: Rotwangchung

02.09.2009 @ 4:21 PM

The slumdog child-actors are pissed that Coraline isn’t in the Best Comedy category.

By: nezzer

02.09.2009 @ 4:21 PM

For less than a cup of coffee a day you too can feed an actor from an award winning movie.

By: Stone Soup

02.09.2009 @ 4:35 PM

In a show of benevolence, Fox has officially announced that they are no longer demanding the actors’ families pay for carpet cleaning after the children dragged shit everywhere they walked.

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 4:41 PM

Look, sure they may not have been paid that much, but this article doesn’t even mention all the priceless tips these kids received on set.

“Hey kid, don’t be born Indian.”

By: Stinky Peet

02.09.2009 @ 4:42 PM

Hey, they got more for their labor than those other Indians ever did.

:::looks into distance, single tear runs down cheek:::

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 4:46 PM

This movie would have been a lot fucking cooler if the Indian kid went on a wrestling program to win the girl.

By: Vodka

02.09.2009 @ 4:46 PM

+1 Peet

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 4:50 PM

I remember the time I went on a game show to win the heart of the girl I loved. You’d think that showing up at her front door with a glowing green chunk of the fucking Agro Cragwould have meant something. Not to this bitch, she was cold as ice…

…willing to sacrifice…

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 4:51 PM

p.s. apostrophes are for pussies.

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 4:55 PM

*Indian boy sits on porch with both hands held out as if weighing two invisible objects*

Listen you little shits, all of you fucking darkies in Asia are fucking terrorists to us. Just be glad we haven’t occupied your damn territory and have managed to find a way to make your already unbearable existence even fucking worse.

By: Crapbasket

02.09.2009 @ 5:00 PM

Is that little girl a monopod? Is she named Ilene? Does she stump fuck her brother for biscuits?

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 5:01 PM

Banner pic: that one legged bitch is about to timber like a mother fucker.

By: Crapbasket

02.09.2009 @ 5:01 PM

You know who want to eat thoes kids?
<=== That guy.

By: Crapbasket

02.09.2009 @ 5:04 PM

Jeesuz I can’t type for shit.

If those little fuckers came up to me asking for some more coin, I’d beat ’em like a couple of cheep congas.

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 5:09 PM

Why can’t our Indian brethren be like the rest of the world and just smile at us as they shout “Chicklet” at the top of their lungs?

Waht can brown do for me?
Answer my customer service calls.
Make my soccer balls.
Stitch up a mean fucking Nike.
Drown on a Monsoon.
Fag up the place.

By: Crapbasket

02.09.2009 @ 5:20 PM

Fuck them! Look at the top of that picture, that’s a fucking Sham-Wow if I ever saw one.

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 5:20 PM

Well, at least we can sleep tonight knowing that none of these kids are going to smelt down their oscars next week.

By: Pauly Dangerously

02.09.2009 @ 5:22 PM

They should have payed them in deodorant and fly repellent.

By: Crapbasket

02.09.2009 @ 5:25 PM

True Chod, you know Cash 4 Gold would have been knockin on those maggot’s cardbord door right the fuck away.

By: chodin

02.09.2009 @ 5:25 PM

I mean, if you think about it, we can’t really trust these Indian kids with money in the first place. It’s like a homeless guy who asks for a dollar: you think that you’re helping him purchase a warm cup of soup, come to find out he’s taking a giant shit in his cowboy hat and wiping with your bill.

That’s right: Indian kids with money = homeless dude shitting into a cowboy hat. Did I stutter?